[snowmonkey]

A old friend of mine shaped me an 8'5 gun as a birthday present some 12 years ago and I was thinking of customizing it... actually to be more acurate I was thinking of hacking it up. I want to shorten it by a couple of feet and give it a more rounded nose. As I have very little knowledge of surfboard construction I was wondering if anyone could advise me on the best way to do this or if it is actually a good idea. This is not my only board so it wont stop me from riding if it all goes to s*@t.

Snowmonkey

[Woody_waverider]

Chances are it wont work - if you shorten only the nose then your going to be lossing alot of nose rocker, without this the board will have a tentancy to pearl.

Best way to reshape a board is to bemove all the glass or atleast all the glass from the bottom and then reshape from the middle, however this is a really nasy itchy job and for the same amount of work you could make a whole new board from scratch.

[snowmonkey]

Hmm, Yeah I had thought of that ( losing a fair bit of nose rocker ), I've estimated that I would be left with about 4 inches at the nose, whilst retaining 2 inches at the tail. do you think this would cause a major pearling problem then? Another thing I was concerned about was that the thickest part of the board would be shifted forward of the center... I suppose this would help with paddling but would that ruin the ride aswell?

Thanks for taking the time to reply by the way.

[Woody_waverider]

4" in the nose on a 6'5" is a little on the low side but still just about surfable, but don't think that it will rip like a thruster. Its going to lack power and ride like an old 70's single fin. really you wan't 4.5" - 5".

as well as shifting the thick point fwd you'll also shift the wide point, the shifting the volume fwd will make the board more prown to stalling and shifing the wide point fwd by that much will make the board much harder to turn. you will also shift the rocker appex fwd and this may make the board push water and be slow and boggy.

I would suggest you borrow an old 70's single fin or thick railed fish with a low rocker and see how you get on, you'll probably fine your gun surfs much better as it is.

If the board is in good nick I'd stay way from just choping the nose off.

[snowmonkey]

Hmm... It sounds like you know what you are talking about...I was actually thinking of ending up with a retro 70's shape but, Maybe I'll just keep the gun instead.

Thanks for your input

[FlyOnTheWings]

i got a 6'4" matt adams squash tail thruster (i think) but i want a fish, i hardly got any money, can i just chop out a fish shape in the tail?

[Woody_waverider]

You can, but remember with shapping you can only take material away, you can't add it and fish are typicaly wider then a thruster and have the wide point pushed forward.

with a 6'4" your only really talking about reshaping the nose, and chankging the fin position - there won't be a lot more you can do. changing just the nose won't alter the performance of the board too much so before you do this I would recomend trying the board with some wider fins as a twinny, this will give your board a much different feel and you may not even need to reshape the board to get what your looking for.

BTW here are some pics of my last home made board

[ILee]

That looks sweet Woody, you doing the Surf Show again in 09?

[Woody_waverider]

Sure if Ed asks I'd be more than happy to participate in any capacity I can, I really enjoied last year.

[morkelkey]

I'd love to know what the Airplane diagram meant to you when you first saw it, and how it has changed how your firm views it value proposition, pricing.